My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770Quotes
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCI work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BC